Well, I must say, I was slightly horrified to hear that Ramadan is being promoted instead.
I do think that we are culturally a Christian country. I call myself a cultural Christian. I'm
not a believer. But there's a distinction between being a believing Christian and
being a cultural Christian. And so, you know, I love hymns and Christmas carols. And
I sort of feel at home in the Christian ethos. I feel that we are a Christian country
in that sense. It's true that statistically the number of people who actually believe in
Christianity is going down. And I'm happy with that. But I would not be happy if,
for example, we lost all our cathedrals and our beautiful parish churches. So I count myself
a cultural Christian. I think it would matter if we, certainly if we substituted any alternative
religion, that would be truly dreadful. Well, which brings me to my supplementary point,
which is that, as we know, church attendance is plummeting. But the building, the erection of
mosques across Europe, I think 6,000 are under construction, and there are many more,
I mean, are being planned. So do you think you regard that as a problem? Do you think that
matters? Yes, I do, really. I mean, I choose my words carefully. I mean, if I had to choose
between Christianity and Islam, I choose Christianity every single time. I mean,
it seems to me to be a fundamentally decent religion in a way that I think Islam is not.
I think you're going to have to explain why you say that, Professor Dawkins. Why is Islam
well, fundamentally not decent, like Christianity? Yes, I mean, the way women retreat, I mean,
Christianity is not great about that. It's had its problems with female vicars and female
bishops and things. But there's an active hostility to women, which is promoted, I think,
by the holy books of Islam. I'm not talking about individual Muslims who, of course, are
quite, quite different. But the doctrines of Islam, the Hadith and the Quran,
is fundamentally hostile to women, hostile to gays. And I find that I like to live in
a culturally Christian country, although I do not believe a single word of the Christian faith.